Sunday, April 12, 2015

DOONESBURY'S CREATOR TURNS TO VICTIM-BLAMING

Less than four months after Islamic fanatics stormed the Paris offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and butchered 12, while accepting the George Polk career award Friday, left-wing cartoonist Garry Trudeau blasted the dead with the claim that they had “wandered into the realm of hate speech.” He also added that “free speech… becomes its own kind of fanaticism.”

Without irony, after punching 12 of his dead colleagues, the creator of “Doonesbury” said that a cartoonist’s job is to “punch up” not down.

What Trudeau fails or chooses not to understand is that rebellion is not hate speech. Charlie Hebdo was not gratuitously mocking Mohammed or Jesus Christ or the Pope. For the cause of free speech, Charlie Hebdo was pushing back against what it rightly saw as creeping fascism, especially Islamic fascism, in the most blatant and in-your-face way possible.

Trudeau has really scraped the barrel's bottom this time. I used to read Doonesbury years ago, but largely lost interest around 1995, and after learning what a screwball Trudeau's become, it's harder and harder to get interested in his long-running strip again. He must wear an ear-covering helmet more impenetrable than B.D's football helmet. Making matters worse, one of the New York Times' leading staffers is defending Trudeau's journey off the deep end. His own comic strip's long lost any relevance thanks to his plummet. I think it's about time he retire it for good. It probably didn't even have much cultural value in the first place.